Faces In The Crowd
by gargz
Summary: Post 5.03 - 7 months since Finn passed and how Rachel is doing. Finchel with some Pezberry friendship.


**Faces in the Crowd **

**Post 5.03 - 7 months since Finn passed and how Rachel is doing.**

_Unintentionally Pezberry, it just formed that way because I can't see Kurt being this person for her any more. Finchel of course._

_I don't know where this came from, it just popped into my head. Its sad, so sorry for that._

_Title - Faces In The Crowd - The Weeknd_

* * *

7 months. 7 months from the night the dreadful phone call came telling her Finn had past. 7 months since she'd last heard his voice and seen his signature half smile. 7 months of going through the motions.

She is moving forward…slowly. Some days she feels like she's heading in the right direction. Doing all the things she's supposed to do, saying all the things she's supposed to say. And other days, she's ready to give up, let the grief and the pain take her. The masochist in her believing that feeling something is better then feeling nothing at all. And feeling the pain, the heartache and sadness _is_ feeling something.

Kurt gives her a disappointed look when she talks like that, Santana just shrugs her shoulders and tells her to just keep on living. She doesn't know what to make of that. What she really wants is to go about her life in complete ignorance of having ever lost Finn. She can - some day's she even tricks herself long enough into believing that everything is okay and that he's still alive and happy and that their 'one day' is just around the corner.

To be fair they are allowing her to grieve in any way that she wants as she allows them to grieve any way they want. She's caught Santana more then once looking through their old year books. When Rachel catches her the ex cheerleader is quick to wipe the tears from her cheeks and play off her emotion with a shrug and a quick exit. Since then Rachel has taken all their yearbooks and has put them on their shelf, in plain view. As is the picture of Kurt and Finn from Graduation. She doesn't want to hide Finn or his memory - she doesn't want them to stop talking about him or looking at his picture. You don't forget someone like Finn Hudson.

She does mean to take her own advice but sometimes its just easy to ignore the pain and keep going forward. There are moments though that catch her off guard- she'll hear a song that will remind her of Finn or see a flash of Red on the crowded street and it'll remind her of the first time she say him walking down the hallway with his Letterman jacket on all confident and very much the Popular boy every girl fawned over.

New York is a big reminder of them, of him and of her. Who they are and who they were supposed to be. She hates that she's given so much thought to her future with Finn and now only being able to live one half of it. She knows that's wrong - to live only half your life but for right now its all she can do. The Bow Bridge once a metaphoric structure merging her life and his, is now just a structure she can't bring herself to walk over. The last time she did she discreetly carved_ F + R_ into the bleached wood - the one lasting part of them that gets to remain in New York forever, as a memory and as faded future that was once theirs.

Its the sea of red t-shirts on a bunch of students from a local school and the inevitability of _Don't Stop Believin'_ being blasted from the speakers a top the Red Stairs in Time Square as she's exiting her theater after Funny Girl rehearsal that has her feeling like she's just been slammed in the chest by a truck. Instantly her heart starts to race and feel heavy in her chest - tears are instant but she pushes them back until she is safely inside her apartment before she lets go.

She shoots Santana a quick and mumbled hello before she's rushing from her room to the shower. She is trying to be better, to not be a complete emotional wreck 24 hours a day but sometimes she just can't keep it up and being in the confines of her bathroom as the scalding hot water is pouring over her and making her skin feel aflame, she allows herself to let go. Tears get mixed in with water and the illusion that she's not completely falling apart gets washed away with every drop that beats against her skin.

Santana's not a fool, she can see when her friend is on the verge of breaking down. She doesn't know how to comfort her that's something she's allowed herself to admit. She doesn't know how to help, she doesn't know how to make the pain go away and she doesn't know how Rachel can be so strong. She's cried, she won't lie. She cries a lot actually. Just like everyone else she gets reminded of Finn too - small things that are just for her to remember about him. Like that one night they all decided to get dressed up and go out for a night out on the town - Kurt was struggling with tying his tie and making sure Rachel chose the right shoes to match her dress, that Santana was caught up in a moment of remembering when she once helped Finn tie his own tie. She blamed her tears on her eye liner being old and making her eyes water. It was a stupid excuse that no one bought but let it go any way.

She hears the shower kick on and the water pelting the ground before the sound is muffled by Rachel's body. She knows what Rachel is doing. She never says anything no one ever does. She sits on the floor with her back against the door listening to Rachel's sobs get mixed with sound of the constant stream of water hitting a body, the shower curtain and then the tub. She lets her own tears fall, for Rachel, for Kurt, for herself, for his family but especially for him. She hated him at one point - she won't ever deny that but she also really loved him. They were complicated friends who shared an unfortunate history and no one ever really understood it and that always made Santana feel special. That she had something with Finn that no one else had - not Puck, or Kurt or even Rachel - it was just all theirs.

She hears the water stop and picks her self up off the floor. When Rachel exits the bathroom and walks into her room she see's Santana sitting on her bed with a brush in her hand. Rachel knows her eyes are red from crying but she notices that so are Santana's. They don't say anything, they never do when they catch each other like this. Santana motions for her to sit on the bed, clutching her bathrobe she sits with her back to Santana. The ex cheerleader gently loosens the towel atop Rachel's head and lets the damp hair fall. Slowly and gently she works the brush through the diva's long dark locks.

They don't say anything to each other they just allow each other to be. This time Santana makes no move to cover the tears falling down her cheeks as she hears the soft sobs coming from her friend in front of her. A strong, beautiful, passionate, brokenhearted girl. This is them healing - with each other and on their own. No one gets a say in how they do that or for how long. Finn Hudson changed their lives for the absolute better. When Kurt arrives he finds them both asleep on Rachel's bed, he makes no move to wake them, instead climbs a top and throws his arm gently over both of them.


End file.
